Clinical Complementary Medicine and Pharmacology 2 (2022) 100038 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Clinical Complementary Medicine and Pharmacology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ccmp Full Length Article Exploration of Pharmacological and Toxicological Properties of Aerial Parts of Blumea lacera, a Common Weed in Bangladesh Pritam Kundu, Shovan Lal Debnath, Samir Kumar Sadhu ∗ Pharmacy Discipline, Life Science School, Khulna University, Khulna 9208, Bangladesh a r t i c l e i n f o Keywords: Blumea lacera Asteraceae Diuretic Antibacterial Anthelmintic Cytotoxic a b s t r a c t Background: Blumea lacera (Family Asteraceae) is a herb found in the uncultivated lands of many Asian countries. This plant is used by quack doctors for some medicinal purposes. Objective: Works presented in this manuscript were conducted on the ethanol extract of aerial parts of B. lacera. Various pharmacological tests like antioxidant, analgesic, anti-inflammatory, antidiarrheal, diuretic, antibacte- rial, anthelmintic and toxicological tests like brine shrimp lethality and acute toxicity were evaluated. Methods: Antioxidant test was conducted by determining secondary metabolites content and DPPH free radical scavenging assay. Acetic acid-induced writhing method, xylene-induced ear edema method, castor oil-induced diarrheal method, and urinary volume test were performed to evaluate the analgesic, anti-inflammatory, an- tidiarrheal and diuretic effects, respectively. The antibacterial test was performed by disk diffusion method, anthelmintic activity by recording the paralysis and death time of P. cervi and finally, cytotoxic activity was performed by brine shrimp lethality bioassay. Results: TPC, TFC and TTC contents of B. lacera extract were found to be 9 mg GAE/g, 31 mg QE/g and 18 mg GAE/g. The SC 50 value of the DPPH radical scavenging assay was found to be higher than 3000 μg·mL - 1 . The LD 50 value of B. lacera extract in mice was higher than 5000 mg·kg - 1 . This extract significantly inhibited writhing reflexes by 24.5% and 43.6% and reduced ear edema up to 24.6% and 41% at 250 and 500 mg·kg - 1 bw doses, respectively. It also increased the latency of the first defecation period up to 52.8 min and 106.6 min as well as decreased the stool count by 34.1% and 48.2% at 250 and 500 mg·kg - 1 bw doses, respectively. It also showed an increase in urinary output in the diuretic test. Good antibacterial activity of B. lacera extract was confirmed by retardation in bacterial growth and significantly killed P. cervi in a dose-dependent manner. In brine shrimp lethality bioassay, the LC 50 value was found to be 5.4 μg·mL - 1 . Conclusion: B. lacera showed mild analgesic, anti-inflammatory and antidiarrheal properties. It could be used as a diuretic, antibacterial, anthelmintic and cytotoxic drug which justify the plant’s traditional uses in folk medicine. 1. Introduction Nature has always blessed us with its numerous medicinal plants. To get a cure for diseases, the dependence on medicinal plants is as old as human civilization. Most of the prescribed drugs are still derived from the plant kingdom. Due to the high expense of treatment, people of third- world countries often rely on medicinal plants to get cures for diseases. In developing countries, up to 80% of the population still use herbal medicines to meet their primary health care needs (Hoyler et al., 2018). Blumea lacera (Burm. F.) is a perennial, branched Rabi weed of India, Bangladesh, Srilanka, Nepal (Fig. 1A). This 1–1.5 m long herb is from the Asteraceae family and is locally known as Janglimuli, Kukurshunga, Kakaronda, Siyalmutra, Susksampatra, etc. (Mishra et al., 2015). In Bangladesh, this herb is almost found all over the world mainly in uncul- tivated lands. Leaves of this plant are obovate, 5–12 cm long, have a very ∗ Corresponding author. pungent odor due to turpentine. The bright yellow flowers are arranged in axillary cymes. The yellow flowers are spiked in shape. Small fruits appear normally in December-March (Mishra et al., 2015; Pratap and Parthasarathy, 2012). Khatri et al. reported that the essential oils obtained from its leaves are enriched with many important compounds like flavones, triterpenes,  -sitosterol, stigmasterol-3-O- -D-glucopyranoside, cineol, campesterol, hentriacontane, lupeol, artemisinin, protocatechuic acid, etc. (Khatri et al., 2016) while Mokat et al. (2020) reported the presence of isooctane, -copaene,  -caryophyllene,  -cadinene, phytol, palmitic acid, stearic acid, pentadecanoic acid, methyl palmitate, etc. by conduct- ing gas chromatography-mass spectroscopy. This plant has much impor- tance in ethnomedicine. Traditionally, this plant is important for many therapeutic properties like antipyretic, anti-inflammatory, anthelmintic, diuretic, antidiarrheal, antimicrobial, cytotoxic, astringent, liver tonic, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccmp.2022.100038 Received 31 December 2021; Received in revised form 18 April 2022; Accepted 19 April 2022 2772-3712/© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Zhejiang Chinese Medical University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)